Talk:Graham Hancock

I recently removed a lot of uncited content from the lead section and summarized his work in that section due to it being the lead. The article seems to advertise Hancock's work and is undue in length in this section. WP:RSUW WP:SS There has been some edit warring where it has been claimed that my REMOVAL of uncited content from the lead section for the sake of summary and removal of non notable content was to some how add "disputed content" to the article. The reason given for reversion was a unjustified assertion that this "didnt improve the article". The article should be reverted to my most recent edit which added citations for content that was already on the article, it added no controversial or disputed content as has been claimed. The article appears to be a rather long advert for Graham Hancock with his website and all of his work written about with very little proof of its notability for wikipedia standards. I do not wish to edit war with anyone or make any claims about anyone in particular, so I would appreciate any help or guidance with making this article more encyclopedic and summary style especially in the lead section. The lead section repeated content in the main body of the article, as I said in my justifications for my edits. I simply summarised what was written later and added no disputed content. Gd123lbp (talk) 00:01, 17 December 2025 (UTC)

Please read WP:LEDECITE. Content in the lead does not need to be cited provided that it is supported by citations in the body. The claim that The article appears to be a rather long advert for Graham Hancock with his website and all of his work... is rather curious, given how his supporters semi-reguarly come to this talk page to decry it as a vicious attack against him. ....all of his work written about with very little proof of its notability for wikipedia standards' any book with at least 2 reviews in major publications is notable enough to technically be worthy of their own article see WP:NBOOKS. Hancock's books, whatever you think about their factualness, have been extensively covered by reviews for decades. WP:BLP states:

BLPs should be written responsibly, cautiously, and in a dispassionate tone, avoiding both understatement and overstatement

This article needs to strike a balance and not be an overly negative Wikipedia:Attack page, while also representing the mainstream scientific consensus on Hancock's views. I think the current version does a good job at this. Hemiauchenia (talk) 00:09, 17 December 2025 (UTC)

Perhaps you could tell me what "disputed content" I added to the page, as you have claimed, rather than simply summarizing the lead section. What is the need to have hancocks personal website linked, if this isn't about advertising him? Just because something is written in the body text doesnt mean it must be repeated without summary in the lead segment. "hyperdiffusionist pseudoarchaeological hypothesis " might sound jargony, but it summarises the core of his claims into a sentence. " rather curious, given how his supporters semi-reguarly come to this talk page to decry it as a vicious attack against him" - only because they dislike him being called "pseudo", which is supported by the sources.

As WP:LEDECITE says: "The first paragraph should define or identify the topic with a neutral point of view, but without being too specific. It should establish the context in which the topic is being considered by supplying the set of circumstances or facts that surround it." Going into the details of the specifics of the claims he makes defies this. It is too specific. "Do not overload the first sentence by describing everything notable about the subject. Instead, spread the relevant information out over the entire lead." I applied a summary and overview and over specific information. Gd123lbp (talk) 00:22, 17 December 2025 (UTC)

"His first three books examined international development, including Lords of Poverty (1989), a well-received critique of corruption in the aid system. " - This is not content for a lead section, it is not summary style, it is too specific, it is content for the body. I have added no disputed content, I have summarised. I did not name the user in question, but they named me, which is a personal attack, so I will say that the user Hemiauchenia has acted in bad faith by claiming that I have added disputed content and engaged in edit warring when I added no disputed content, and they are the ones that began the process of warring with my edits and reverted them repeatedly, instead of editing specific segments. Gd123lbp (talk) 00:27, 17 December 2025 (UTC)

A link to a website is standard Doug Weller talk 17:00, 17 December 2025 (UTC)

Wikipedia articles do indeed have links to websites, but we need to consider things like that with controversial figures like Graham Hancock where the website link is a link to his personal website which promotes his theories which are categorically described as being pseudo-scientific. I think this and the general promotional style of the article needs to be reconsidered. A vast amount of biographical wikipedia articles do not have a personal website link in the bio. It is not the given you seem to be framing it as. Gd123lbp (talk) 18:24, 17 December 2025 (UTC)

So basically, you are suggesting that because you don't like what Hancock writes, we shouldn't link his website. Thank you for making your intentions to impose your own personal opinions into articles so unambiguously clear. AndyTheGrump (talk) 18:28, 17 December 2025 (UTC)

Its not about my personal opinion of Hancock, read the article itself and the vast preponderance of credible sources, they classify his work as pseudo-science. The main issue I am suggesting is that this article reads more as a promo piece for Hancock by having his website linked and in the other ways that I have described above. Most public figures have official websites, these are first party sources that should only be referenced with other non first party sources to demonstrate their notability. Gd123lbp (talk) 19:15, 17 December 2025 (UTC)

I am well aware of what the article says, and frankly, I think your description of it as a 'promo piece' is utterly absurd, given that it starts by describing Hancock's work as 'pseudoscientific', and then goes into considerable detail as to why. As for the website link, I suggest you read Wikipedia:External links, and WP:ELOFFICIAL in particular. If you can point to anything in there that asserts that 'notability' (which is a criteria for article creation, not for content) has any relevance to inclusion of such links, please let us know. AndyTheGrump (talk) 19:51, 17 December 2025 (UTC)

I have actually not proposed any radical alterations, the edits I attempted to make were to summaries things to improve the style to get away from the unwarranted detail in the article header. Notability/credibility actually relates to the type of quality of sources that are used in an article as well as its creation. Much of the lead included information that is repeated in the article body that was not actually in summary form at all. My edits here did not add any "disputed content" at all, as is being suggested. I actually did not add anything at all for the most part, I applied WP:SS to avoid undue weight being attached to trivial aspects of his career according to the majority of sources. Gd123lbp (talk) 20:03, 17 December 2025 (UTC)

Notability isn’t required for sources. They need to be reliable. See WP: RS. Doug Weller talk 20:14, 17 December 2025 (UTC)

I am perfectly aware of WP:RS thankyou and I suggest you give it another read. Reliability and notability play into each other. Also, my point about notability was not about the sources, it was about having notable content in tbe lead section, which is what defines the article. Gd123lbp (talk) 20:20, 17 December 2025 (UTC)

How about you stop giving lectures to contributors with vastly more experience than you on what you think policy is, and explain what in Wikipedia:External links justifies your removal of the link from the infobox? Or are you now accepting that you shouldn't have removed it? AndyTheGrump (talk) 20:53, 17 December 2025 (UTC)

You just condescended about policy to an editor with over 200x as many contributions as you. Why don't you take a moment to consider how utterly ridiculous that is and then reflect upon your position here? ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 20:57, 17 December 2025 (UTC)

Gd123lbp, here is a friendly suggestion: rein your neck in. You are new here. I don't think you're a bad person, but you are talking to one of the most experienced and respected editors on this project. I suggest that you give it another read does not reflect well on you at all. Notability and reliability are not the same thing, and Doug was correct to point that out notability is not a thing we talk about when discussing sources - it's a concept that concerns subjects, not sources. You are learning here, which is great, but when you are learning you need to listen to what experienced people tell you, not kick back at them when they give you advice. Girth Summit _(blether) 20:58, 17 December 2025 (UTC)

"Notability and reliability are not the same thing" - for the record I never said they were. Appeals to authority are not very impressive I must admit, but fine, I'm being told to be quiet, so that is that. Gd123lbp (talk) 22:05, 17 December 2025 (UTC)

Appeals to authority are not very impressive I must admit This is tantamount to suggesting that your opinion on the proper way to fight in the octagon is on par with that of a title-holding MMA fighter or that your opinion on the mechanics of the universe is on par with that of a physicist.

(Personal attack removed)

It is not, in any sense, a fallacy to rely upon the knowledge of masters in areas in which you lack expertise. It is, in fact, common sense, and a perfectly valid form of defeasible reasoning. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 14:25, 18 December 2025 (UTC)

Most BLPs don’t have a website to link. So that’s not surprising. Doug Weller talk 18:54, 17 December 2025 (UTC)

See the most recent edits in the article and the most recent talk page discussion with claims of adding "disputed content", when summary style was applied which was then reverted in favour of promotional content that did not summarise, such as a link to hancock's personal website.

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Graham_Hancock&oldid=1327936351

then this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Graham_Hancock&oldid=1327937767

Apologies for any typos of clumsy link addition, Ive not done this before.

Gd123lbp (talk) 00:40, 17 December 2025 (UTC)

I have removed the RfC tag because it is a complete fail of WP:RFCNEUTRAL. A RfC hardly seems necessary when nobody else has responded to the discussion yet. An RfC is something that is called when there has already been discussion and it has been decided that an RfC is the best way to resolve the issue. As it stands an RfC is premature given the lack of anyone else responding. Hemiauchenia (talk) 01:08, 17 December 2025 (UTC)

The fact someone like you has the admin power to be able to remove my request for comments from others after our inability to come to an agreement on this is testament to the corruption of wikipedia. Why would i do a request for comment if i wasnt lacking for that? You should be ashamed of yourself for your abuse of your powers here on wikipedia in order to defend your favourite pseudo scientists wiki advert. Look at the edits you've done on this page, youve added all this free advertising for graham and prevented any criticism or context or summary being added that might make this more encyclopedic and then attacked people by name for trying to fix the article then prevented them from holding you to account. You rely on making blanket assertions in your edits with no justification, rolling back hours of work of other editors and then accuse them of edit warring when thats what you started, then prevent them from getting a request for comment because there hasnt been comments aside from you... Shame on you. You are a disgrace to wikipedia. You add links to wikipedia articles on style and content that i had to have already read since i also mention them and use them, so thats a thinly veiled attempt to make yourself sound like youre acting in good faith when youre just abusing your mod powers because you are clearly biased in favour of hancock. A quick look at all your edits on the article where you remove criticism and white wash is proof of that. Gd123lbp (talk) 02:34, 17 December 2025 (UTC)

Your first edit to this article was 10 hours ago, and the discussions were started 2.5 hours ago. You should give others at least a few days to respond. And even then, you shouldn't start a RfC until you have tried other avenues of dispute resolution (see WP:RFCBEFORE).

Hemiauchenia is not an admin, and your personal attacks are completely inappropriate. Hypnôs (talk) 03:07, 17 December 2025 (UTC)

"you shouldn't start a RfC until you have tried other avenues of dispute resolution" - as I explained, I tried resolving the dispute with them and that failed, so I tried to bring in other users into the discussion. They have the admin power to be able to remove my ability to try to resolve this with other people, so that struck me that they might have some admin powers, even if they are not officially an admin. Since they have a bias in favour of their perspective it seems inappropriate that they should be able to edit my arguments in opposition to them.

That is why I gave up with them and said shame on them because they prevented me doing that and have launched a personal attack on me accusing me of edit warring and accusing me of adding "disputed content" when i added no content, i summarised content. They are the ones that started the edit warring with me, then labelled me in such a way. As I explained above, they gave no justification for their blanket removal of content in the history edits section, then just pinned a load of labels on me "edit warrer" instead of talking to me about it. If they really have no mod powers or anything above what I have then i will do what i can to treat them in exactly the way they have treated me. I have not got personal with them, i started by naming no one, but it was they who named me instead of just referring to the content of the edits that had been made, thus they made this a personal argument when this talk page should be about graham Hancock content. It is their actions bringing this to my talk page and talking about me personally that has resulted in the damage to this conversation. Other editors might or might not comment on this in the next few days who knows but the entire conversation at this point has been poisoned by their unjustified actions, labelling other editors and engaging in edit warring and personal attacks. I tried bringing others into this to keep it on topic but the well has already been poisoned now by their actions. Gd123lbp (talk) 10:46, 17 December 2025 (UTC)

Hemiauchenia's actions in closing the malformed 'RfC' were entirely appropriate. AndyTheGrump (talk) 11:10, 17 December 2025 (UTC)

You added content to a stable version to the article and were reverted. At this point you should have started a discussion on the talk page. Instead you reinstated you version without discussion:

Warning you about edit warring might have been premature, but it's not a personal attack. Nowhere has Hemiauchenia attacked you personally. Hypnôs (talk) 11:11, 17 December 2025 (UTC)

"Reinstated without discussion" - this is what they did, whereas i provided justification for all my edits as and when I did them. These talk pages should be about content, not users, they brought me up by name rather than the content. Gd123lbp (talk) 12:07, 17 December 2025 (UTC)

How about actually discussing content then? AndyTheGrump (talk) 12:33, 17 December 2025 (UTC)

@Gd123lbp You removed your comment about providing diffs and talking about the content wasn't your priority. Hypnôs (talk) 23:20, 17 December 2025 (UTC)

Read the "recent edits - "disputed content" section where content is discussed at great length and you'll see that you are mistaken. Now, as others have said, please leave this be. I've been told to be quiet, so thats the end of this, so no more vindictive comments please. Gd123lbp (talk) 00:58, 18 December 2025 (UTC)

Can we have diffs, rather than having to read two full articles and compare differences? Slatersteven (talk) 13:20, 17 December 2025 (UTC)

This edit request has been answered. Set the |answered= parameter to no to reactivate your request.

Graham Hancock is a British author known for promoting alternative archaeological hypotheses. Nyzaforest (talk) 04:17, 21 December 2025 (UTC)

 Not done: it's not clear what changes you want made. Please detail the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. fifteen thousand two hundred twenty four (talk) 04:47, 21 December 2025 (UTC)